Chapter 116 – Hide and Seek
As we step through the tear in reality, a pressure builds against my movements. There’s nothing there—nothing I can see, at any rate—but it feels like I’m pushing against a magnet, the repulsive force growing stronger the closer I get. Then, just like that, the pressure evaporates and we stumble into a painfully white room.
[You have been subjected to a Time Dilation spell.]
[You have entered The Sanctum.]
[Ollie: WOAH. IT’S SO WHITE! IT HURTS MY EYES.]
I’m squinting myself. The room is weirdly devoid of detail, as if built for function over form. We’re currently standing on a wide, levitating disk in the center of a spherical room. Despite its spartan look, it’s far from empty; hundreds of giant, blocky structures are suspended in the air around us—above and beneath us, too. They vary in size from a small car to a passenger jet.
A crack snaps through the floor at my feet, and I startle. Ollie emits a quiet grumble, flapping his wings and stirring up gusts of air. Once more he tries to jump—and falls back to the floor, producing another crack.
[Fyre: Hold on a moment! Don’t move.]
[Ollie: HEY! HOW COME MY WINGS AREN’T WORKING?]
I kneel by his side, Checking him over to make sure the shrinkage spell didn’t have any unintended consequences. What could be wrong?
Aerodynamics.
I want to smack myself in the forehead. Of course! Both lift and thrust are proportional to the surface area of a wing. Shrink the wing, and you shrink the lift. I turn to Kanin and Noli; Kanin relays everything I’m telling him to Noli with sign language.
[Fyre: The lift to weight ratio is too low. Shoot. I should have thought of this from the start. We shrunk his wings, but maintained his mass.]
Ollie lets out a sad chirp.
[Ollie: OH NO! BUT HOW WILL I BE ANT MAN?]
[Kanin: He’s too heavy?]
[Fyre: In a sense, yes. More accurately, his lifting surface isn’t sufficient anymore given the force his magic can produce.]
[Ollie: I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS]
[Kanin: What if he was lighter? I have an anti-gravity spell]
Ollie looks between me and Kanin in excitement.
[Ollie: OH MY GOSH]
An anti-gravity spell? This world really has magic for everything!
[Fyre: You do? Fascinating! Oh, I’d love to study it a bit at a later date. Is it like the ones they use on airships?]
He shrugs.
[Kanin: I don’t know. Probably. Dizzi said something about it being used for cargo]
I speak with Ollie privately. “Is this okay with you?”
“YEAH! OF COURSE. WHO WOULDN’T WANT ANTI-GRAVITY MAGIC?”
I’m not sure if he even understands what Kanin’s intending with his spell—though to be fair, I’m not entirely sure myself.
[Fyre: Is it safe?]
[Kanin: I can cast in on Noli first if you like. But don’t take too long to decide. We need to get moving]
Entirely fair, given our time crunch. I step aside as Kanin produces a piece of charcoal and quickly draws out a spell circle. I Check the circle, and Echo doesn’t note any anomalies. I Check Kanin as well as he funnels magic into the spell; he has nowhere near as much mana as I have access to via the Dungeon Core, but Shirasil clearly gave him a boost over his normal levels.
Wait.
The Dungeon Core.
As Kanin casts his spell on Noli, I mentally reach for the Dungeon Core, and find I can’t access it. And now that I’m paying attention, I can’t sense my connection to Mirzayael, either. My stomach twists unpleasantly, and I have to fight down a rising wave of anxiety. I turn my attention inward, focusing on my Psionic Link spell.
No, Mirzayael’s link isn’t gone. It’s still there, just as the Dungeon Core’s link is still there. There’s just… interference. Something blocking me I can’t quite push past.
I suspect the Time Dilation spell is playing a factor.
[Kanin: Fyre?]
I open my eyes and find Kanin’s done with his spell. Noli is bouncing around on the platform like some kind of astronaut, and admittedly, it does look quite fun. I look down at Ollie and raise a questioning eyebrow.
[Ollie: PLEEEEASE?]
I let out a sigh. It’s not as though I could just leave him here on this platform, indefensible and exposed.
[Fyre: Alright. Listen to what Kanin tells you and follow his instructions.]
[Ollie: YAY!!!]
Kanin once more activates the spell on Ollie, and soon enough the dragon is airborne once more. He flaps his wings and lets out a tiny, excited chirp as he floats off the ground.
[Ollie: WOAH! HAHA, THIS IS FUN!]
At least Ollie and Noli seem to be enjoying this excursion. Kanin turns back to me.
[Kanin: I’m going to retrieve Anika’s refiner, first. After that, I’ll try to figure out where the Travelers are]
Inefficient—every minute we waste in here is an hour back in the Fortress.
[Fyre: Ollie and I can find the Travelers. It will be—]
[Ollie: HOW DO WE DO THAT?]
[Fyre: —faster with both of us looking. You can meet up with us when you’re done. Ollie, let’s switch over to our Psionic Link so we don’t distract Kanin.]
[Ollie: OH, OKAY. GOOD LUCK, KANIN!]
[Kanin: Thanks. You, too]
Kanin and Noli jump off the edge of the platform, and I briefly think I’m about to experience another heart attack. But the couple float down much slower than is natural, and I place a hand over my drumming heart. Even knowing magic is involved, there’s something instinctively alarming at watching two people jump off a ledge.
Ollie flaps up so he’s eye-level with me. “READY?”
Well. I suppose that instinct is reserved for people without wings.
“Ready,” I confirm, activating my Jets to take off as well.
The room is unsettlingly quiet, in addition to it being devoid of color. It’s also devoid of smells, now that I think about it. Completely, unnervingly sterile. My Jets light up the blocks as we take a lap around the large, spherical room, and the fires hiss like a blow torch. It’s not as subtle as I would like, and my bright plumage doesn’t help either. At least Ollie is small and white; he almost looks camouflaged against the white, hovering blocks. But if anyone stumbles upon this room while we’re here, I don’t think I’d stand much of a chance at keeping hidden.
I land on the nearest block, cutting off my Jets, to reassess my approach. Ollie also lands, and the cube rocks beneath his weight.
“WHY ARE WE STOPPING?” he asks.
“I’m trying to figure out a better way to go about this,” I tell him. We’ve landed near a wall, and as far as I can tell, it’s just as smooth and featureless as the rest of the room. No doors in or out that I can see. And definitely no prisoners.
I crouch down, examining the block we’re currently perched on. Why fill the room with blocks if we arrived on a disk? These blocks weren’t designed to be used as platforms. They were designed to have volume—like a cell.
“OH, THAT’S PRETTY,” Ollie remarks.
I glance over at him as he tilts his head at the block beneath his feet. “What is?”
“THE SYMBOLS,” he says, tapping a claw on the block—and puncturing it in the process.
I light a Spark in my hands. Not that it’s hard to see in this room, but I need a shifting light source. And sure enough, the fire catches on tiny white markings inlaid in the surface. Even as I watch, they seem to crawl slowly over the block.
I run my hand over its surface, and I can feel faint irregularities, but nothing like a seam. I frown to myself. Shirasil wouldn’t have sent us all the way here if we didn’t have a way to free the Travelers. How would I open this box if I were a god?
I Check the cube’s inscriptions.
[Check,] Echo says. [A containment cube designed for Pantheon Operation.]
Does Pantheon Operation include anyone with access to the System? I ask.
Echo almost seems to pause for a moment, as if considering this. [Affirmative.]
I smile. Can you open this containment cube for me?
[Affirmative.]
The face of the cube folds away like origami, and I have to activate a Jet to stop myself from falling in. Ollie gives a startled chirp, but his anti-gravity spell leaves him hovering in place.
Inside, the cube is hollow, just as I suspected. But it’s far from empty.
A giant bubble appears to be suspended within the cube. It’s orange with runes crawling all over its surface, with just enough transparency for me to make out something inside. I land at the bottom of the cube, and find myself face to face with a young man.
He doesn’t react to my presence. In fact, he doesn’t move at all. He has one hand pressed to the surface of the bubble, and his eyes are unfocused, like he’s staring straight through me.
Check.
[Name: Hans]
[Species: Dhampyr]
[Class: Brawler]
[Level: 19]
[HP: 135/135]
[Mana: 50/50]
[Role: Beast Tamer]
He has a Role. We found one of the Travelers!
My excitement is quickly dampened by Hans’s state. Is he being subjected to another Time Dilation spell? I ask Echo. In addition to the one that affects the entire Sanctum?
[Affirmative,] Echo says.
What’s this time dilation ratio? I ask.
[Sixty to one.]
The same as the Sanctum, then. Yet, this spell is nested, meaning the time dilation would compound. Sixty by sixty is three thousand six hundred. So that would come out to…
“FYRE?” Ollie asks. He sounds sad. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I assure him, touching a hand to forcefield. Unlike a bubble, this one feels as solid as glass. “He’s just moving a lot slower than us. If we get him out of this container, he should speed up again.”
Yet, how to do so? I try to get Echo to open the forcefield, like she had with the containment cube, but she informs me only the mage who cast the spell will be able to end it.
“MAYBE WE COULD BREAK IT OPEN?” Ollie suggests, landing on its top. He shows his teeth. “I COULD BITE IT.”
“I’m not sure that’s the wisest—” And, he’s already biting it.
To my immense relief, the spell doesn’t react defensively. But it also doesn’t pop. Ollie growls, clawing at the surface like a dog trying to dig a hole, but the barrier doesn’t so much as flicker.
Hm. This magic is tougher than I would have thought. The System won’t open it for us, and neither will brute force. I suspect we’ll need a magical approach. But will I have time to figure that out?
A notification blinks to life in my System Interface.
[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: we have it. travelers next]
Once more Kanin’s messages are coming across garbled and full of static. Like the System itself is struggling to handle his words.
[Fyre: I found one of them. I think they’re all being stored inside the white containment compartments, but I’m not sure how to get them out. We’re toward the top of the Sanctum if you want to see.]
[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: echo can open the cubes]
I smile to myself; seems Ollie and I weren’t the only ones to figure out that little trick.
[Fyre: Yes, I’ve discovered the same. But that’s not the issue; they’re imprisoned by some sort of stasis field within each cube.]
There’s a short pause before Kanin’s next message.
[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: coming]
I turn back to Ollie. “Want to open up a couple more of these cubes and look for more people like Hans? All you have to do is ask Echo to open them.”
Ollie jumps off the bubble and does a backflip. “COOL! I BET I CAN FIND MORE THAN YOU.”
I grin. “I’ll take that bet. Ready? Go!”
The little dragon zips out of our containment cube before I’ve even activated my Jets to fly after him. In truth I have no interest in the competition, but if it can make this adventure fun for Ollie and expedite our mission, then all the better.
We fly around the room, opening and closing cubes to check the contents. Not all of them contain Travelers—some contain magical objects, such as enchanted weapons or jewels. I’m sure the Dungeon Core would just love if I brought one of those home for it to eat.
Or for Mir to wield. My chest squeezes faintly as I think of her, and I instinctively reach for her mind, only to be reminded of our blocked connection. We need to finish here quickly; who knows what’s going on back at the Fortress? There isn’t a minute to spare.
A full lap around the room produces a count of thirty-two Travelers. I’m about to send Ollie on a recount when Kanin contacts me once more.
[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: don’t move. we have company]
At the same time, Ollie breaks mid-flight, flipping back toward me with wide, scared eyes.
[Ollie: FYRE! YOU’RE IN DANGER.]
An icy chill runs through me.
[Fyre: What? Who?]
I cut my Jets and land on the nearest cube, tucking my brightly colored wings as tight as I can manage against my back. I silently beckon for Ollie to follow, and he touches down a moment later.
[K̶a̵n̷i̶n̸: wind god. hide in cubes]
Wind…
My stomach flips as I realize the implication. If this god can use wind magic even half as well as Shirasil, then they won’t need to see us to know where we are.
I open the cube beneath us, and once we’re both inside, I have Echo close it back up. Even inside the containment cube, where there should be no light source, everything is still that ever present glare of white. I hold out my arms, and Ollie flies to me. I pull him in close to my chest, tenting my wings around us.
“MY ROLE,” he says, nuzzling into my neck.
Even with the anti-gravity spell, every slight movement he makes feels like a hammer to body. I squeeze him tighter. “Hush. I know. It will be okay.”
I say it with complete conviction, because I don’t intend to let anything happen to him. Even if it means fighting a god to keep him safe.